Tuesday, February 06, 2007

What We're Reading: The Brief History of the Dead

While I'm likely forgetting something, as I often do, I can still say with certainty that The Brief History of the Dead is my favorite book published in 2006. It's admittedly a little late in arriving to our new book shelves, but in the end we saved the best for last! In gorgeous prose, Kevin Brockmeier tells two tales: one of a woman alone at an Antarctic research station, and another of a population of the dead who are disappearing exponentially from their new Earth-like world. The mystery of how these radically different story lines are connected will keep you pinned to your seat for the duration of the novel. I rarely read a book more than once, but this is among the select few that I could see myself revisiting in the future.